"When you say move forward and help it is a white savior position!"
Mini Museum, Lagoa do Juara, Brazil. 2022
These words haunted me for the rest of my stay because they probed and question my position and work in participatory projects and people I engage with through them especially Artist's Menu. What does it really mean to work with local community establishing a space of equal, mutual exchange and benefits? Is this equality even possible if we all give different value to the labor and things made?
For many years now Joana has been collaborating with Associação de Artesanato Lagoa do Juara. The association is led by and amazing lady Francina Coelho de Oliveira, a great craft artist and Joana is working with her for many years now helping the association grow. Through our discussions Joana told me how she herself has questioned her position and role in this collaboration and community. Coming in as someone for a position of privilege she is careful with her approach. This made me analyze the state of privilege in Serbia and mine own.
Coming from Balkan I rarely thought of my geographical region as one of privilege. Quite the opposite, Balkan is an a constant state of juxtaposition. Not a colonizing one, rather it always seemed more as being colonized. But getting to scratch a tiny bit of the art scene and working conditions I was introduced in this region of Brazil/Espiritu Santo state and cities Serra and Vitoria, I started thinking that Balkan had this unique geographical position where it was switching from the oppressor to the oppressed one but never being long enough in any of them. The economical distinctions between class, race, culture where more subtle here that in Vitoria or Juara. We tried elaborating more on this feeling but both Joana and me lacked words for it. If I can't relate to the role of white savior just by being white, and by whom standards white, because in the EU I am certainly not as white as other nations, how do I position myself, because here I was very seen. I couldn't place myself and I felt I should.
Joana introduces me to the Paulo Freire, book Pedagogy of the oppressed. We started a reading club, slowly sharing what we understand of his thoughts in our own cultural and professional backgrounds. We are slow with this exchange but it is something to contemplate on. First chapter already made me understand better what Joana has been doing through and what is it that I am feeling. His theory cleared so much of my current state of mind there. His teaching on community work and participation are now becoming a resource for my PhD work. I have opened so much there that I am yet to understand and contextualize through my current work.
Francina Coelho de Oliveira, founder of the Mini Museum, working with taboa plant
My stay with Joana revolved a lot around our approaches to art, values, labor and meaningful exchanges. It was about cooking, relationships of care, remaining to be wrong and enter failure. Through this residency, we got a chance to get to know our individual works and projects in more depth, provide input on how to continue and strengthen our collaboration. Discussions where a key learning element on this residency where we questioned power dynamics and knowledge production.
The Mini Museum project led by Joana in front of the Association is an example of cooperation, activist community art project that investigated these dynamics of moving forward and growing. Learning about Francina Coelho de Oliveira work, labor invested, working conditions and fight she goes through daily but also immense knowledge she freely gave me disturbed the foundation of Artist's Menu ideas.
When does knowledge exchange happen so that it is not one sided, can it ever be equal and how do you make it so you are not exploiting another party especially if you can't compensate them in money when you are asking their valuable time? Can any resource offered be enough? What makes an honest collaboration and can it be implemented in the holds of academic institutional frameworks? There are core traits of Artist's Menu path and we got a chance to polish them and make room to work with them.
Mind map for an artwork to come
We opened so much and the discussion is still ongoing since we are still finding ways to continue the exchanges and collaborations put in place.
My research of the art scene continued through a trip to Rio de Janeiro. We went visiting art spaces, museums and community organizations in order to better understand the variety of artist thinking and doing outside of European thinking modality. Rio de Janerio is a whole new environment to navigate and get to know.
more on the Rio trip and the places we visited
I collected research material on active practices and working methods. Gathered material is now a valuable source for my lectures at the Chair of New Media Art.
Exploring the margins in museum of Rio de Janerio. Examples of queer, black, indigenous art
+++This residency was made possible by Joana Quiroga and Francina Coelho de Oliveira in front of the Associação de Artesanato Lagoa do Juara, Fredone Fone in front of LaTinta who supported my stay covering local travel expenses, accommodation and food for my whole stay in Brazil. This residency is also made possible through travel grant by the Ministry of Culture and Information of Serbia.